


Friends Don't Let Friends Go Hatless

by onemooncircles



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Retail Therapy, Shoplifting, extravangant hats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-05-27
Packaged: 2018-04-01 12:27:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4019716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onemooncircles/pseuds/onemooncircles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabela falls in love with a hat and is fortunate enough to have a wealthy friend within arm's reach.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friends Don't Let Friends Go Hatless

**Author's Note:**

> _Super-short silly friendship drabble prompted during the April Fool's Bodyswap challenge on Tumblr.[Codenamecynic](http://www.codenamecynic.tumblr.com) asked for something involving Isabela and fancy hats. Very mild language warning toward the end._

“Oh, that’s it! That’s the one!”

“You're not serious. It’s got _bells_ on, Bela.”

Isabela took the hat from Hawke and turned it over in her hands, gazing at it longingly. It was quite the most ridiculous, ostentatious bonnet Hawke had ever seen: covered with crushed velvet in an almost offensively vibrant purple, the brim nearly three feet across, stiff but flexible and turned up slightly at the sides to give it what the milliner perhaps imagined was a jaunty air. The crown, decorated with silk flowers and a spray of over-long dove-grey feathers, was finished with a cluster of tiny, tinkling silver bells - the kind that might ordinarily be found on the collar of a pet cat. 

“Of _course_ it’s got bells on,” Isabela replied. “It’s that sort of hat. Look at it! Oh, it’s _perfect_. You’ve got to try it on.” Hawke raised an eyebrow. They’d been at this for nearly two hours, now, and she was beginning to wish she’d never agreed to it. For one thing she was fairly certain the shop’s proprietress had noticed Isabela filling her pockets with silver hatpins when they’d first come in. 

“Bela,” she countered gently, “I don’t mean to be rude, or anything, but this party is being held to celebrate the fact that I handed a nine-foot qunari his backside on a platter. I’m supposed to attend in the guise of the fearless Champion of Kirkwall – you know, Slayer of Dragons, Eater of Souls, Defender of Widows and Kittens and all that caper. If I turn up wearing that hat, I’ll be laughed out of the city for good and they’ll never let me back in. Either that, or I’ll be mistaken for an entertainer and I’ll have to spend the evening juggling and pretending I can dance.”

“Oh, shush,” Isabela said, still gazing down at the hat. “You want to stand out, don’t you? This is just the thing.”

“As a matter of fact I’d prefer _not_ to stand out any more than is absolutely necessary," Hawke countered. "Or does the phrase ‘notorious apostate’ mean nothing to you?”

“Never mind all that,” Isabela exclaimed, and hooked an arm through Hawke’s, dragging her bodily in front of the fitting-room mirror – a long, narrow thing framed in dark shining wood and polished to within an inch of its life. “Just try it on.” She reached up and perched the hat on the other woman’s head.

It dropped over Hawke’s eyes and settled neatly on the bridge of her nose.

“…Oh,” Isabela said flatly. “Bugger.” 

“Does this mean we can leave?” Hawke asked, lifting the brim with one hand so she could see out from underneath it.

“It means Carver isn’t the only member of your family with limited space for brains,” Isabela replied, laughing – but sounding just a little sad. “What a shame. It _is_ lovely.” She ran a hand over the long grey feathers, and when the little silver bells tinkled in response her face split into a broad, bright grin. 

Hawke favoured their reflections with a wry smile, realizing she’d been had. “You want the hat,” she said, trying not to laugh herself. Isabela made a mocking, coquettish face at the mirror.

“Me? Oh, Hawke, I couldn’t _possibly_ ask my rich friend with her mining concern and her independent income and her enormous mansion in Hightown to buy me a new hat.”

“ … Fine,” Hawke said, giving up the struggle and letting the giggles get the better of her. “But do me a favour and get rid of all the stuff you’ve pilfered before we try to leave, all right?”


End file.
